This is a town located about 50 km west of Krakow became a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. It was here, on the outskirts of Oswiecim and Brzezinka (3 km away) - that the Nazis created the - Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Between 1940-1944 well over 1 million people, from many different nationalities were murdered. Since 1942, the camp has become the site of the largest mass murders in history, carried out according to Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jewish population.

Many buildings remain, as a reminded of Hitler's evil plan; the gas chamber and crematorium I, the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoriums II, III, IV, V, Execution wall, railway platform, mass graves, the stone and wooden barracks, the prison cells, fence, and watch towers.

In 1979, it was entered into the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.